Abstract

Recent studies on the 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (calcitriol) receptor have shown association of unoccupied receptor with isolated nuclei, thus suggesting that hormone is not required for transformation and nuclear localisation of this receptor. In the present work calcitriol receptors from cultured breast cancer cells were studied for evidence of hormone-dependent activation and compared to those from chick duodenum. Unlike other steroid receptors changes in receptor mobility on ion exchange and gel filtration were not found for occupied and unoccupied receptors. Furthermore no changes in affinity were observed on DNA-cellulose with both hormone-bound and unoccupied receptor having equally high affinity, eluting at 0.25 M KCI. However, a substantial hormone-dependent increase in receptor affinity for nuclei was seen. Thus calcitriol receptors do appear to undergo hormone-dependent transformation which is detected by their increased affinity for nuclei, without any accompanying gross changes in charge density, size or affinity for DNA-cellulose. Previously, we have reported that fractionation of T-47D cells in a low salt buffer resulted in recovery of unoccupied receptors in the cytosol, whereas occupied receptors were associated with purified nuclei. The data presented in this paper and our previous work suggest that calcitriol receptors do undergo a hormone-dependent increase in their affinity for nuclei. Furthermore in all this work calcitriol receptors from cultured human breast cancer cells displayed identical physicochemical characteristics to those of chick duodenal receptors.